Synopsis

Liz Gilbert is a modern woman on a quest to marvel at and travel the world while rediscovering and reconnecting with her true inner self in Eat Pray Love. At a crossroads after a divorce, Gilbert takes a year-long sabbatical from her job and steps uncharacteristically out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life. In her wondrous and exotic travels, she experiences the simple pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of love in Bali. Based on an inspiring true story, Eat Pray Love proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world.

It was the Thanksgiving long weekend recently and the sales numbers this week include Black Friday. It should come as no surprise that there was an uptick in sales this week, with a number of older releases seeing a massive jump. This includes Toy Story 3, which shot into top spot with 1.27 million units / $21.19 million for the week and 6.78 million / $124.60 million after a month. It is now the third-best-selling DVD of the year.
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This Friday is Black Friday, but there's a lull on the home market with not a whole lot of great releases.
(This is the usual pattern for Thanksgiving.)
The biggest hit coming out is The Expendables, which should top the chart, while there are a number of smaller releases that are in contention for Pick of the Week. The best of these is Metropolis: The Complete Metropolis, which comes out on Blu-ray this week after being released on DVD last week.
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Mirroring its domestic debut, Paranormal Activity 2 opened in first place internationally with $22.32 million on 2752 screens in 21 markets. The film opened in first place in the U.K. with $5.92 million on 389 screens, while it also topped the charts in Australia with $2.68 million on 185 screens and in Mexico with $1.86 million in 452. On the other hand, it had to settle for second place in South Korea with $1.05 million on 218 screens over the weekend and $1.18 million in total. While in Italy it could do no better than fourth place with $1.55 million on 250.
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Despicable Me completed its climb to the top of the international chart with $27.03 million on 4751 screens in 40 markets for totals of $170.27 million internationally and $417.32 million worldwide. This week's openings include the U.K., where it topped the chart with $5.81 million on 522 screens, which is a good result, but not a great result. It placed second in Italy with less money at $4.86 million on 544 screens, but ironically, this is a better result due to the relative size of the two markets and it only placed second due to a massive local hit. Meanwhile, the film was down just 23% in France adding $3.57 million on 657 screens for a two-week total of $8.82 million. It was down 35% in Spain, but remained in first place with $2.25 million on 542 screens over the weekend and $8.27 million in total. The film is running out of places to open in, but by this time next week it should have $200 million internationally, while $500 million worldwide is still the main goal.
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Eat Pray Love rose to top spot on the international chart with $18.47 million on 4289 screens in 55 markets for a total of $64.81 million internationally. By this time next week, the film should have more revenue internationally than it had domestically, and it was a solid midlevel hit here. The film opened in first place in Australia with $3.42 million on 328 screens over the weekend and $3.63 million in total. On the other hand, it had to settle for fourth place in Russia with $1.74 million on 223 screens.

Resident Evil: Afterlife was in a close race for top spot on the international chart, but lost out to Detective Dee: Mystery Of The Phantom Flame, a Chinese film. That film opened with $16.42 million on 650 screens in 4 markets over the weekend for a total opening on $17.63 million. Most of this likely came from its native market, unfortunately, China is not a market that releases box office number in anything close to a timely fashion, so exact numbers there will likely remain a mystery for a while.
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Another week, another milestone for Resident Evil: Afterlife, this time crossing $200 million worldwide, which makes it the first in the franchise to do so. Over the weekend it led the international box office with $25.20 million on 6519 screens in 55 markets for a total of $154.71 million internationally and $206.78 million worldwide. It managed top spot during its debut in France with $2.96 million on 408 screens, but that's below average for its run so far. Meanwhile, it added $2.87 million on 633 screens in Japan for a total of $38.51 million after three weeks of release there. That's almost as much as Inception has made in that market, and its been there for ten weeks.
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There was an upset at the box office with Takers pulling out a last minute win. However, it wasn't enough for the overall box office, as that sunk 12% from last weekend to $113 million. More importantly, it was down nearly 10% from last year. 2010 still has a $300 million lead over 2009 at $7.53 billion to $7.23 billion and I'm not concerned about the big picture, yet.
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The last weekend of summer is actually the Labor Day long weekend, which is next weekend. So that makes this weekend the penultimate weekend of summer, which is one of the worst weekends of the year to open a film. Last year was a bit of an exception with The Final Destination opening with $27.41 million. There's almost no chance The Last Exorcism will perform that well; in fact, if it matches Halloween 2's opening, I think the studio will be happy.
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If it wasn't for The Expendables, there would be very little good news to report this weekend. None of the five new releases were major hits at the box office, but on the other hand, none were complete bombs either and even the weakest of them had some reason for optimism. The overall box office was down 11% from last weekend to $128 million, but that was close to 1% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2010 has a $300 million lead on 2009 at $7.36 billion to $7.05 billion.
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Five new releases should enter the top ten this weekend, including a few that at least have a reasonable chance at top spot.
But there's also a reasonable chance that The Expendables will squeak out another win.
Regardless, there's almost no chance the box office will keep up with last year's pace when Inglourious Basterds opened with nearly $40 million.
We will be lucky if any film makes half of that this weekend.
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Two of the three wide releases that opened this past weekend were able to score at the box office and that was enough to lift the total box office to $144 million. This was 8% higher than last weekend and 1% higher than the same weekend last year. Granted, that 1% improvement is well below the rate of inflation, but a win is a win. Year-to-date, 2010 has earned $7.15 billion compared to 2009's pace of $6.85 billion. As we transition into fall, we are in an excellent position to top $10 billion for the second year in a row and set yet another record. Granted, the lack of a Avatar-like megahit coming out could be an issue, but I think 2010 has built up enough of a lead that it won't prevent the yearly box office from reaching 10 digits.
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There are three wide releases this week, but fortunately they are all aimed at widely different audiences, which means they might all reach their potential.
However, that potential might not be enough for the market as a whole to keep pace with last year.
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July started out rather well, and while there was a little weakness in the end, four films surpassed $100 million, and another could join them soon.
That said, there don't appear to be any $100 million movies opening in August; in fact, there is a chance none will come close.
Worse still, August of last year saw three $100 million movies open in the first three weeks.
There's almost no chance that will happen this year, so 2010 will likely lose ground to 2009 in the yearly box office race.
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Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.